Learn Spanish Vocab Fast with this Fantastic Free Tool

The tool in question is ReadLang, it works with any website in a variety of languages, and makes the process of learning new words from online text much easier than it was before, saving you massive amounts of time and effort. You click the word you don’t know, it automatically looks it up, gives you the definition, and then stores the word into your flashcard deck for later review (via ReadLang’s website). Below I’ve demonstrated this with my preferred Spanish-language newspaper, El Heraldo:

Click to see a larger version.

The only thing you have to do is sign up and install the web reader, which is merely some javascript that you bookmark and then go to once you’re on the page you want to start using ReadLang on (they give you better instructions when you sign up, don’t worry).

Great built-in flashcard/SRS tool

Once you’ve signed up and installed the Web Reader, you can just go to any website in Spanish (or any other language) and when you see a word you don’t know, just click it – doing this automatically adds it to your ReadLang flashcard deck along with the definition for it and the original sentence that it was used in. The flashcard system is just like Anki so it handles the timing of what should be reviewed and when based on how well you know it. You no longer have to manually copy the word into Anki, look up its definition, put the definition into Anki along with the context it was used it, and then save it. ReadLang does all this for you. Here’s the flashcard system in action:

Notice how the original context is included at the top. You click the blue box with the question mark to reveal the answer and then indicated how well you knew it, just like Anki:

Shows you front and back automatically

One of the really nice things about it is that it automatically flips the cards for you and tests you on both sides, meaning that you’re shown the Spanish and English equally often, 50% of the time you’ll get the Spanish word and have to know the English and 50% of the time you’ll get the English and have to know the Spanish. With Anki and most other flashcard/SRS’s you have to manually do this yourself and each and every card and it’s very tedious. You can see this below where it’s flipped the above card and showed me the English, “highway”, and I have to know that the Spanish word for that is “carretera”, whereas before it showed me “carretera” and I had to come up with “highway” to get it right:

Progress report and list of words you reviewed that day

Lastly, it provides you with a chart detailing your progress (you can see I’ve been negligent of late, I need to get back to this but I’ve been working more on listening comprehension recently) as well as a list of all the words you reviewed that day:

Conclusion

This is a wonderful little tool, largely in its simplicity and ease of use. It does precisely what a ton of people have wanted for years now and nothing more, it merely does that and does it well. Again, you can check it out at ReadLang.com.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It's available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

Get My List of the Top 10 FREE Online Spanish-Learning Resources PLUS My "Get Started Learning Spanish" Series for Beginners

I'll also tell you my story about how I got fluent in Spanish in six months (yes, it's difficult, but yes, it can still be done), mainly by STUDYING (not just watching) Spanish-language TV shows, movies, and music. Sign up below.

Follow Me

Sign up for my "Learn Spanish on your own" series of e-mails and get my list of the Top 10 Online Spanish-Learning Resources FREE IMMEDIATELY!

I have whole series of emails (many series!), lists of the most useful free online resources, and more to help beginning/intermediate Spanish students as well as Spanish teachers (a lot of that information is useful to both for different reasons). If you'll subscribe to my email list right now I'll immediately send you my list of the Top 10 Free Online Spanish-Learning Resources as well as the first in my "Getting Started Learning Spanish" series, with much more to follow (e.g. my "Learn Spanish for Real" series where I teach idioms and slang from real-life contexts, "Learn Spanish from the News", "Learn Spanish on YouTube", and more!).

Thank you so much for giving me a chance and subscribing to my questionable writings, you'll receive your first two in the next few minutes - Andrew